Pages

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Holi shit!!! Who’s cleaning this up?

It’s the day after Holi. It’s not a nice day to go out on
the streets at all. There’s thousands of plastic bags littering the streets
everywhere…and puddles of ugly red, black and green water which u have to precariously
evade. And in some cases, carelessly strewn food and paper plates after the senseless
revelry of last evening. Hungry stray dogs and cows feed on these leftovers
mindless of the fact that they may also be ingesting the tiny plastic bags
which kids use as water balloons to pelt on to unsuspecting strangers…all in
the name of a festival.

When did we get to be so stupid?

When did festivals begin to become so hazardous?

Holi is not the only instance. Take Ganapati Festival. It’s
noisy, a traffic nuisance and not to forget the horrible horrible water
pollution that happens post Visarjan day.

Diwali…again, utter noise pollution, releases incredible
levels of toxins in the air which we all breath and perhaps it is what clouds
our thinking.

There’s not a single festival I can think of in India which is
celebrated in a quiet and a ‘festive’ manner.

And certainly, from what I know, it was not how it was
originally intended to be. Ganesh Utsav was meant to unite the members of the
community. Diwali was meant to be the festival of lights…not noise and asthma.

Gokul Ashtami was meant to symbolically represent the birth
of Lord Krishna. Since when did it become an excuse to waste thousands of
litres of milk and curd which would easily feed hungry, starving kids?

Ditto for Shiv Jayanti where we bathe the lingam with milk
and it ultimately flows down the gutter!!!

More birds probably die on Makar Sankranti because of the
sharp manjaa, than any other day of the year. Some people too become its
victims.

These are just some festivals. My list can go on and on and
more…but I think you’ve pretty much got the point.

No. I’m not saying that we should not celebrate. Of course
we should. But then our celebrations shouldn’t be at the cost of others. Can’t
we have a powder holi instead of a water one? Use flower petals instead of
harmful gulal?

Do we have to burst crackers on Diwali? Can’t we simply
light diyas?

Why can’t Lord Shiva or Krishna be pacified with flowers? I’m
sure they don’t really care. So why not instead, go to starving children and
give them a donation?

If you must participate, why not do it sensibly instead of
doing it awfully stupidly?

In another two months time, it’s going to rain. These very
plastic bags which we have strewn around yesterday, will ultimately clog our
drains and gutters and we will yet again be stranded in dirty flooded water.

And then we will blame the government for all our ills.

Our kids, and their kids are going to have a country full of
shit, devoid of water as well as pure air. And then we will create another
festival to celebrate that.